Getting Out Alive - How to survive in the forest

To survive in extreme forest conditions is rather difficult if a person doesn't have certain skills. Therefore, before planning for mountains or forest hiking, you need to prepare for different situations and to examine the ways of survival. Of course, nowadays it is almost impossible to get lost, tourists carefully pack their backpackages with necessary equipment such as special appliances, camping kit and food. But if the GPS or phone, for any reason, have broken and you found yourself far from the nearest settlement getting lost and even one-on-one with nature, you should stop and try to think how to solve the problem.

Certainly, the first thing you should think about is the shelter for overnight stay, that will help you to solve a lot of problems. Then you should think about how and what to cook. It’s necessary for you in case of having no tents and necessary equipment. To survive, you need to have enough strength to overcome a variety of difficulties that can arise in a wooded area before you can get out of it.

So, if you have got lost in a forest area, try to orient and determine how far it is located from people the nearest railway station or settlement. It can be done by surrounding sounds or to climbing a tree and looking around. If you found yourself in forest and realized that it wasn’t impossible to get out of it, get ready for the overnight stay. Gather firewood, put up a tent or build a shelter and cook a meal.

If you found yourself in forest without any equipment, you will have to survive using expedient means. To build a shelter you need to take some branches of trees. It is also useful for making fire. But for successful flaming it up it is necessary to first find tinder - dry twigs, grass, wood. When a fire flames up, it will be possible to add some wet firewood to keep it warm. Even if you are staying in forest in summer, the fire will be useful for cooking and scaring away different animals and insects. In winter it will help to keep warm and not to freeze sleeping.

After all of it you need to go into looking for food. It would be better to have some food stock. If you have it, try to save it and study how it is fresh. Spoiled products is not recommended for eating. If you don’t have any products at your fingertips, you would have to look for food on your own. You can use for this purpose berries, mushrooms, fish and wildfowl. However, not all berries and mushrooms are used for food. And a wildfowl must be you caught at first, that isn’t so easy for the beginner. Furthermore, even catching the beast, you should try to prepare correctly the catch and save some stock of meat for the case of spending a lot of time in forest. First of all you gently remove wildfowl’s skin, then take out the internal organs and cut the trunk into pieces.

It’s following to say that if you don't understand what a berry or a mushroom are in front of you there, it would be better to exclude it from use - you can get severe poisoned or even worse it will lead to death. Caught fish can be eaten even fresh, but the offal and the bowels should be no matter taken out - it contains harmful parasites. By clear eyes and red gills you can make a conclusion that the fish is healthy. Therefore, it can be eaten without fear.

All of these manipulations will help you survive, after sleep and meals you should try to get out of the forest. During getting out you need to make notches along the road, not to wander off on the same road. In search of a way out of the forest to try to find a river, that will, probably, lead you to people. Listen to the sounds and carefully observe the path. If suddenly the road became impassable, you need to turn aside - it can be an animal trail. In case of the presence multiple paths you should choose more trodden - it tells of going there some people a little bit before for sure.